Delgado

Chapter 30

A/N - I'm alive 🫡

TW - tread carefully towards the end of the chapter

~~~

Today was the day.

It was literally between life or death; I was either making it out alive, or I was kissing my life goodbye. Soon.

I'd spent all of last night tossing and turning, we'd spent hours going over our plan to get the fuck out of here and if it didn't go well...who the fuck knows what would happen to us?

"How are you feeling?", Nico lowered himself onto my bed and scratched his head, I didn't know if he was as on edge as I was but the pair of us were far from okay.

"I dunno, like I could die today?", I scoffed, "if we mess this up-,".

"We won't", he said sternly, "have some faith".

"I've lost all faith", I brought my knees up to my chest, "wonder who's fault that is".

"Fair enough", he narrowed his eyes, "I deserved that. And the million other digs you've made".

"You fucking bet you do", I frowned, "I thought you were some innocent guy who burned everything, not the son of some sick-,".

"Yeah I get it", he snapped, his harsh tone catching me off guard, "sorry. But don't associate me with him".

"How can I not when-,", he hit the bed, his jaw clenched and fists tight, all features of the shy person I knew in the cafe long gone.

"I'm nothing like my father", he snapped, "he enjoys harming people, ruining their lives, I would rather die than know I'd hurt someone".

"You hurt me", I looked away from him as my eyes welled with tears, "you took me away from them".

"I know", he groaned, "I know. And it'll kill me until the day I die". Good, I wanted to say, I hope it kills you. But I didn't. I couldn't bring myself to say such things to someone even if I hated them. 

"So the plan", I decided to just change the subject, "you think we have it perfected?". He loosened up and unclenched his fists, clearly appreciative of the change of conversation too.

"You tell me", he shrugged, waving a hand, "from the top, go".

~

Zane

37 hours.

I hadn't seen my sister in 37 hours. I didn't know if she was okay, safe, fucking alive- and it was eating me alive.

I'd been consumed by an immense amount of anxiety since her disappearance first became apparent; and since then, between the searching, the pressure, the permanent worry, I hadn't been okay.

We'd searched all 12 safe houses that Marco had narrowed us down to yesterday, and she wasn't in any of them.

Never in my 27 years of life had I see Marco make a mistake.

Not when we would do our homework together when we were younger, and certainly not when we were in the midst of hunting down Santiago; it was only ironic that the first time this would happen was when Isabella's life was on the line.

And it was killing him.

Tensions were high between all of us, every single one of us hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, and had no intention of doing so until Isabella was under our roof.

"What do you mean you made a mistake?", Caleb smacked a palm on my desk and the sound ricocheted off the walls in the silent room, "our sister could be dead because of you, you fucking-,".